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In this conversation, we delve deep into Sydney's personal journey with autoimmunity and psoriasis, exploring alternative healing modalities, particularly naturopathy and Chinese medicine.
For the complete show notes and transcripts visit inspiredliving.show/143
For the complete show notes and transcripts visit inspiredliving.show/143
Creators and Guests
What is Inspired Living with Autoimmunity?
The podcast for high achievers who want to stay sharp, focused and full of energy despite their diagnoses. Those who know there has got to be something better than simply accepting decline.
Hosted by Julie Howton, a National Board Certified Functional Medicine Health Coach who used to suffer from crippling Rheumatoid Arthritis until she learned the tools and strategies to take her power back from autoimmunity.
In this podcast, Julie brings you interviews with thought leaders in the Functional Health and Wellness space. You will get actionable recommendations to Take Your Power Back and catapult your health. No fluff, just concrete, useful steps to improve your health!
because one of the things about
psoriatics is we have a personality
type where the way I describe it is we
turn our, um, hobbies into obligations.
And so we tend to be hyper, hyper
stressed out people and acupuncture
minimally, even if it's needles in
the wrong place, will calm down the
nervous system and allow for psoriatics
to like, not get so overwhelmed.
Welcome back to the inspired
living with autoimmunity podcast.
I'm your host, Julie Michelson.
And today we are joined by Dr.
Sidney Mallower, who runs the Tendervine
Health, an acupuncture and integrative
East Asian medicine practice in
Berkeley, California, specializing in
the treatment of complex conditions, in
particular autoimmunity and dermatology.
Dr.
Sidney's training is focused in
traditional Japanese acupuncture and
moxibustion, classical herbalism, and
clinical integrative East Asian medicine.
In today's conversation, we are
demystifying autoimmunity from the
Chinese medicine perspective, and Dr.
Sidney explains how approaches
like moxibustion can be
autoimmune game changers.
Sydney, welcome to the podcast.
Thanks, Julie.
It's great to be here.
I am so excited for our conversation
today, and I would love to start
by having you share some of
your own journey with listeners.
Um, because I know you have a story
that's going to make people lean in.
So, yeah, so, um, I have autoimmunity.
I've had it since I was seven.
So I have a psoriasis.
So, as a lot of people know,
autoimmunity tends to come in threes.
Um, so, my first one was psoriasis,
which I had when I was seven.
Um, which is very rare for
psoriasis, because usually psoriasis
happens after puberty, not before.
So, that means it's a very,
like, hard to treat psoriasis.
Um, and so, I just remember,
like, itching my whole life.
And, I grew up with that, and I
went to doctors, and they gave
me steroid creams, and, you know.
Then I was in college,
um, and it got really bad.
So my junior year of college,
it was on 75 percent of my body.
Uh, and I went to school in upstate
New York, where it's bitter,
bitter cold, and my psoriasis
is always worse in the winter.
And then I, um, I was just like at my
wits end, and I went to the doctor,
and they're like, well, it's, the
only option for you is a biologic.
Which, I was 20.
And they effectively were like,
Yeah, one of the big risks is,
um, Like, leukemia lymphoma.
Because it cuts off the
inflammation process, Which
includes tumor necrosis factor.
Which is what actually kills tumors.
So, I was at my wit's end.
I'm like, I'm 20 years old.
Um, and I respect people who
want to go down that route.
Just for me, I needed other options.
I was like, this can't be the only option.
And so my dad had suggested I
actually go see a naturopath.
And I was like, okay, I didn't
know what it was, right?
I'm from New York, we didn't
know what naturopaths were.
Um, so I went to a naturopath and
within that conversation they're like,
I think it had something to do with
your gut, like what you're eating.
So let's do an elimination, um,
and then check back in three weeks.
So she gave me like a really great
protocol for an elimination where we
took out the seven major allergens, um,
and then a plan for reintroducing them.
And in the three weeks I was
off, my psoriasis reduced by 50%.
Which not so I'd love to
be pretend I'm surprised,
but it was mind blowing for me because
I was like in this conversation
with the naturopath initially, she
was like, um, She asked about my
digestion, which my dermatologist had
never asked about my digestion, and
I had awful digestion my whole life.
I remember I always had tummy aches, um,
but I was at the point where I, you know,
it was my junior year of school, a lot
of pressure, and I remember it felt like
I was passing gravel in my intestines.
Oh.
And I just thought, Like, I'm Jewish.
Jews tend to have poor digestion, right?
We're a little sensitive.
We're a little sensitive, so I
was like, I have Jewish tummy.
Like, this is no big deal.
This is just what I'm, I
was just doled out with.
I'm diagnosing
you with Jewish tummy.
That is awesome.
Yeah, pretty much.
But also, kind of the story I
had in my head my whole life.
Yeah.
I was just like, I have
Jewish tummy, right?
Um, and it's funny because as I learned
further on, Ashkenazi Jews have a, four
times more likelihood for inflammatory
bowel disease than anyone else.
So that, so just tell
me is real, but right.
But it's, um,
yeah, but it was a thing.
So I was like, and I had never
put the two and two together with
the deterioration of my skin and
the deterioration of my digestion.
And so in those three weeks, I felt great.
I had more energy.
I didn't feel like I was passing gravel.
And then when I started reintroductions,
when I reintroduced gluten, particularly
wheat, she didn't say gluten at
the time because this is 08, where
gluten wasn't exactly a thing.
But when I reintroduced wheat,
I got all that back again.
And my psoriasis started
getting bad again.
So I took it out and I've
been gluten free ever since.
And it's so funny because
people ask if I miss it.
And I'm like, no, because I know
how painful it was when I was on it.
Yeah.
Um, so, but it was miraculous.
So in that, that, you know, in those
three weeks, it went down by 50%,
and then my digestion got better,
and then over time, it went away.
Um, and since 2008, so that was
how many years ago, 16 years ago?
Um, I've had three major flares,
when before, I was consistently
flared since I was 8 years old.
And the three flares coincided with
major emotional events in my life.
And so, Um, that started really
getting my, my wheels turning where I
was like, Oh, the system is more like
skin ailments are not just skin deep.
Right, right.
And I started like really going for
more alternative methods because Western
medicine in my case did not meet my needs.
Right.
And so I started going down this
path for my own health, right?
I worked in something completely
different for 10 years.
I worked in, um, social enterprise.
So I helped build social, socially
minded startups for 10 years.
And then, um, I remember I
was 29 and I was like, Oh my
God, I'm turning 30 next year.
What do I actually want to be?
What do I want?
Who do I want to be?
Yeah.
Legit.
I was like, Oh, cause my entire
twenties was doing things that
people told me I'd be good at.
Right.
So that's why I worked in social startups.
I was really, really good in like
understanding and reading people.
I'm really good at like responding on the
fly and like building things from scratch.
And so that's why I did that because
people told me I'd be good at it.
And then when I was turning 29, I was
like, Oh, I, I don't know if I want
to do this the rest of my life, right?
I don't know if I want
to work in some startups.
I'm like burnt out and I'm
working for other people.
And I'm a, I was an
impossible person to manage.
God bless all my managers in the past.
No, really.
The only reason they kept me
on is because they needed me
because I was so productive.
Right.
But,
um, But yeah, so I was like, okay, what
do I actually want to be when I grew up?
And I did a whole analysis for myself and
I realized I wanted to work directly with
the beneficiaries of my day to day work.
I wanted mentorship.
Um, and I wanted more control over
what doing what I thought was right.
So, meaning, I didn't want a boss telling
me what to do, I wanted either to have a
boss that let me be subject matter expert
and give me autonomy, or be my own boss.
Um, and so, I was like, okay, I know kind
of what I want to do, but in what realm?
And so I went to my Google search history,
and my Google search history is all, you
know, What, like, acupressure points for
this, and, um, not foods to help with
asthma, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
Right.
And so I was like, okay,
there's something here.
And at the time, I hadn't realized it,
so I had befriended an acupuncturist.
Okay.
Because I was living in Medellín,
Colombia at the time, and so I wound up
befriending an acupuncturist who would
invite me into treatments and started
mentoring me before I consciously knew
that's what I was going to go into.
Um, and then I decided on Chinese
medicine in particular because one,
acupuncture really, really helped
me in those emotional upheavals.
I hadn't started the herbal side
yet, but eventually when I was in
school I did and my psoriasis got
significantly better after that,
um, from another flare that I had.
And then, um, I, so I was already in
it, but I didn't know, like it wasn't
conscious in my mind that like I was
already being mentored in this medicine.
Right, right.
And then one of the reasons why I chose
that as opposed to like Ayurveda or other
types of like, um, medicines that have a
whole systems approach, uh, was because
in the United States, Uh, especially
in California, which is where I was
planning on moving, um, acupuncturists
are considered primary care providers.
So they're taken more seriously
as a bridge between East and West.
And so I eventually decided that I,
you know, quit my job, took six months
off to rest because I was so burnt
out, and then went to grad school.
And then I started my practice
and I focused my entire practice
in autoimmunity and dermatology.
I love it.
Yeah.
And I love the, I want to be careful
what rabbit hole, cause I could talk
to you for five hours, um, starting up,
you know, when nobody wants to hear our
conversation about growing up on the East
coast as a Jewish girl with Jewish tummy.
Yeah.
Or why, even though certain people,
you know, are like, I don't believe it.
You'd never cheat with gluten
is exactly what you said.
No.
Why?
I would never do that to myself.
No, it hurts.
And the more I learn about celiac,
I'm like convinced that I have it.
Yep.
Um, I just,
but I can't get diagnosed now
because I would have to eat gluten.
Right.
Well, and that's how I, that, that
was what happened to me was my son
was diagnosed with gluten, gluten
diagnosed with celiac when he was 12.
I went gluten free to support
him, you know, middle school.
And I remember it was like right
before his Bar Mitzvah, like, you
know, and back then I actually.
You know, thought that, that it
was so important, you know, such an
important part of that age to eat junk
food, you know, just kind of funny.
Um, and then my rheumatologist was
like, Oh, well, I bet you have celiac.
I bet that was your first autoimmune
and you just don't know it.
And same thing.
They were like, well, we'll do a biopsy,
but you have to start eating gluten.
That was as far as I got.
I tried, I failed, and I
will never do it again.
I, I won't even try.
I was, like, literally, look
at all of the extra intestinal
manifestations of celiac disease.
I even had the dermatitis herpetiformis.
Like, I remember it as a kid.
I would have these long wheels.
Yeah, these long wheels on my
arms and legs and that's what
dermatitis or pediformis is, right?
Yeah, it can show up on the on
the um abdomen too, but like it
looked exactly like the pictures
and I was like, oh crap Okay.
Yeah.
And my, my son actually didn't
present with any GI issues.
It
was extra intestinal.
Yup.
And luckily, you know, we found out much
to the surprise of everybody, cause he
had been tested, you know, blood tested
back then a million times, um, which
nobody ever told me didn't mean anything.
Um, and we, he was doing it as a rule out.
And they were like, I remember literally
when getting the call from the pediatric
GI doctor, it was like, 530 at night
and I had a chicken pot pie in the oven.
Oh no.
It's like, wait, what do we do?
Cute.
Anyway, see, we could go
in a million directions.
I want, I want to circle back to, um,
because I do love, there are not enough
practitioners focusing on autoimmune
and dermatology and not a lot of.
true healers focusing
on dermatology, right?
Nobody's asking why, not nobody.
Not enough at, you know, connecting
gut health and, and all the
things I always, you know, nobody
has a steroid cream deficiency.
Like, that's not really what's going on.
What's going on.
Um, but I want to dig in a little
bit and, and have you teach us.
About Chinese medicine.
Um, and, and this approach because you're
a trained functional medicine provider,
but I know from, from chatting and
reading, um, that, you know, you don't
really Chinese medicine is your approach.
And, and yes, you have tools.
from being a functional medicine provider,
but really, you come at it from a
different, a, a, a different perspective.
Yeah.
So, um, yeah, this is
a, it's a great topic.
So, first I want to address some things.
So, it's funny because you say healer.
I am not a healer.
You're a conduit.
Yeah, it's more like, I don't feel
like I'm a healer, and I feel like
having that perspective makes it
much easier to be more scientific.
Right?
And, and also, like, when I think about
it, um, If anything, I'm twwhatever I
give people is 20 percent of the solution.
The other 80 percent is them and
their genetics and their habits.
Right?
And that's true of any medicine.
Right.
But I'm guessing you're not
giving them that 20 percent and
sending them out, out the door.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
I definitely support.
Yeah.
A
hundred percent.
We're a support system for sure.
But like sometimes I, cause I've seen
it, I've seen people in my profession
be like, I'm a healer, but like
this person's not getting better.
What am I doing wrong?
And I'm like, no, no, no.
So
it goes to take a step out and be
like, this is their healing journey.
I am a helper on that journey.
What more can I do to
help them turn a corner?
So that's the first thing and
it feeds into Chinese medicine.
So Chinese medicine is a very
sophisticated medical system.
It is still practiced in China, um, in
hospitals and actually, uh, it's their,
their entire training in China and in
Japan is dual East Asian medicine with.
western medicine.
And actually, uh, Bao, back in
the Mao Zedong era, he tried
to get rid of Chinese medicine.
Yes.
Uh, and he couldn't, so he wound up
just accepting it in this, like, very
public display of drinking herbal
medicine, et cetera, et cetera.
So, um, he really tried to get
rid of it to, like, modernize,
but it just, it didn't work.
It didn't help because Western medicine
on its own wasn't meeting people's needs
in China when they were so used to this
other sophisticated medical system.
Um, but having both is extremely
helpful and makes it much more powerful.
So, um, so yeah, so that's like the.
The interesting part about Chinese
medicine is that, uh, we have, a
lot of people will have, at least
I had this perspective that it
was more of like this hippie, you
know, um, like energy medicine.
It is, it's actually not.
It's a very, very sophisticated system
of medicine that has multiple arms.
Um, acupuncture is just one of them.
And, uh, as I was saying, I was
telling you before, but I'll say it
now too, acupuncture is what is known
the most about Chinese medicine.
Um, but the character for acupuncture
includes moxibustion, which is a
technique where you burn, uh, mugwort.
on and near strategic points in the United
States without burning the person, um,
because, you know, we're a litigious
society, but, um, in China and Japan and
Korea and A lot of places in East Asian,
in East Asia, they, um, do burn the
skin as a therapeutic Oh, interesting.
Modality.
But it's just as important as acupuncture.
And for autoimmunity, I find if I had
to choose one tool in terms of that
particular arm of Chinese medicine, it
would be moxibustion instead of needles.
Interesting.
It makes such a difference.
So, um, so yeah.
So that's one arm of Chinese medicine.
Another arm is herbal medicine.
Herbal medicine is super sophisticated.
It's their own form of pharmacy.
Um, and instead of taking, you
know, studying and taking an active
ingredient and hyperpotentializing
it, they keep it in the herb because
all of the other elements of the herb
help to negotiate it coming into the
tissues and into the cells, right?
And that's the interesting part, is
that, um, it's very, like, it's so
scientific, even with the herbal medicine.
And now they do a lot of research
into why the herbal medicine
works, and they've actually tried.
Um, in, in the United States,
in the UK, in particular, um, I
have a teacher, Mazen Al Khafaji.
He, uh, is a T, he's the TCM dermatology
expert, and he specializes in dermatology,
autoimmunity, and allergic disease.
Um, and he's been doing this for 40 years.
Like, he's the go to expert.
And so I trained with him for a year
and took the hardest test of my life
to pass his, his, like, diploma course.
Um, but he Uh, has been consulted on
a lot of these studies that are trying
to, like, figure out what is the one
herb that helps with, like, peanut
allergy or eczema, and they can't get
it less than four herbs in a formula.
Yeah.
Because it doesn't work on its own.
It's the synergy between them.
Which makes, it makes total sense.
Yeah.
Total sense.
So, and back to Moxie Bustian for a
minute, because as I confess to you before
we recorded, I had never heard of it.
I've done interviews on Chinese medicine
before and nobody's ever mentioned it.
Nobody else has it in their bio.
Um, and you said it.
I just want to circle back.
Um, I'm guessing, you know, when you
said that if you had to pick one, I'm
guessing you don't usually pick one
is, is kind of what I want to know.
I don't, I don't.
But if, um, and it depends
on the, the issue at hand.
So, um, like for rheumatism, 100 percent
moxibustion over herbal medicine.
For dermatology, 100 percent But what
about acupuncture?
No?
No.
Acupuncture's, uh, yeah.
If you're gonna go for, um, like, So I, I
deal with a lot of, like, uh, joint pain.
So, particularly autoimmune joint pain.
So, like, PSA, psoriatic
arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis.
Yep.
Um, um, You know, polymyalgia,
rheumatica, uh, a lot of
different All the owies, yeah.
Yes, all the owies.
And, um, moxa bustion
makes a huge difference.
And that, that's the one time
I will actually, with consent,
burn with moxa bustion.
Because it will immediately
remove the joint pain.
Nine out of ten.
Really?
Wow.
And I send them home with stick on
moxa so that they can do it daily.
Oh, cool.
So, okay.
So then they can continue
ongoing treatment themselves.
A hundred
percent.
And that's the whole point.
Like my, my goal in practice is to
get somebody to not need me anymore.
Right.
Right.
Yeah, me
too.
I know it's a terrible business
model, but it is what I'm here.
I actually think it's a
great business model because
then you just help more people.
Right.
And it keeps it interesting.
Yeah.
Right.
Cause you get new cases
and you're like, Oh, yeah.
Okay.
This is interesting.
I
haven't seen this before.
Let me go down the research rabbit hole.
Yeah.
Um, But yeah, so that's, noxibustion
is extremely powerful because it gets
really deep down to the blood level.
It works in the same way as needles,
where needles will move what's called
the qi, which is effectively like
the, the energy within your body.
So the nerve pulses, um, oxygen through
the blood, things like that, uh,
whatever brings energy into the system.
It's really hard to compare, to
really encapsulate qi in words.
a Western mindset, but it's
effectively everything that hours
your cells and movement and talking.
So it's like hormones is chi, um, nerve
impulses is chi, things like that.
I think so, like life, this is so
not, I'm sure accurate, but in my Lay
mind is, you know, life force energy
is what it's like, all of that, all
of you need all of those things.
Yeah, exactly.
And so it's what makes you alive.
I want to back up, um, which is probably
the first question I should have asked
you, which would be, you know, what is.
And I, this is a broad question,
but what is the Chinese medicine
approach to autoimmunity?
Like what is going on in the body?
Okay.
It's a great, great question.
There are four leading theories.
I did my doctoral thesis on one
of them because I found it to
be the most relevant to today.
So I will go into that one because
we will be talking for seven hours
if I went into the other three.
Um, so it's a concept of,
that's called yin fire.
So, effectively, yin fire
is the displacement of
metabolic fire in the body.
Right?
So a Yin Fire scenario is the
displacement of that metabolic fire.
Because we have metabolism that's supposed
to work on, you know, feeding these
cells so that they do XYZ, and feeding
these cells so that they do XYZ, and
feeding the immune cells so that the
innate and the adaptive immune system
are balanced, and they're, like, fighting
what's gonna hurt you, and preserving
what's gonna, like, nourish you.
Help you.
Yeah.
So a Yin Fire scenario is
effectively a displacement of that.
metabolic process, right?
It's like a confusion in
that metabolic process.
Uh, I'm not going to go in deep
into the Chinese theory where
it's like, where it's like the,
the spleen drops into the kidney.
Like, we don't need to know that.
Yeah.
So the way I like to describe
Yin fire scenarios or Yin fire.
So, cause Yin fire itself is good.
Yin fire is equivalent to metabolic fire.
I think of Yin fire as the pilot light.
And the, um, Yin fire scenario
that causes autoimmunity to be when
oil drips into the pilot light.
I love that.
I'm such a visual person.
Yeah.
So I love that.
Yeah.
When I teach, so I, I put
together a course on Yin fire
scenarios for practitioners.
And like the image I use is like,
um, it's someone in the kitchen
who is, you know, by a stove,
normal, happy, smiling, cooking.
And then it.
Goes to the next one where they,
obviously, there's been like a grease
fire and there's like burnt everywhere
and there's soot on their face.
Um, and that's kind of what happens
in autoimmunity, is that you, through
injudicious diet, Which is a big part of
it, um, through genetics, through, uh,
like HPA axis dysfunctions, aka high,
really, really high stress, um, through,
um, infectious disease that doesn't
fully, that completely wreaks havoc on the
system, oil drips into the pilot light,
and then wreaks havoc on the system.
And so the autoimmune symptoms
is the system trying to go back
to homeostasis after a while.
Um, when there's still oil being
dripped into the pilot light.
So
are
you
saying that the autoimmune
symptoms are information?
Wow.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
I love, I love that.
And I'm joking because to me, like if,
if, if that's one thing that listeners,
you know, constantly are reminded of
is that their symptoms are there to
tell them something's out of balance.
Yeah.
Pain is your body trying to stabilize you.
Love that.
Yeah.
That's what, that's what it is.
When we talk, even when we talk
about simple back pain, I don't
try and just get rid of back pain
when it comes into my clinic.
I try to understand what is it protecting.
So for example, there's a lot of people
who, who get Ehlers Danlos syndrome
or similar hypermobility syndromes.
And almost all of them have neck pain.
Okay.
Mm hmm.
Right?
The reason they have neck pain is because
the, um, cartilage in their spine is not
stable enough to support their spine.
So their body holds it with muscle.
And that's why they have neck pain.
So if you try and aggressively
get rid of neck pain in somebody
with Ehlers Danlos syndrome, you
will make it worse over time.
Makes sense.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's, that's just like an example of
showing that, like, it, to your point.
It's all information.
Right.
And you need to understand
what that information is.
So doing, so something like a
biologic is never my first step.
There are people that do
need to go on biologics.
And I, there's always a time and a place.
And, and I had a client yesterday, a new
client who's currently on a biologic.
Um, and, and I love it.
She used the word this, and I didn't
even, we hadn't even gotten into it yet.
You know, she's like, you know, as a
bridge, She's a young mom, you know,
but she's smart and she knows that, no,
I don't want to do this for the rest
of my life and I shouldn't have to.
And, and, um, when I, healed and came off
of all my medications, including biologics
and DMARDS and you name a category.
I was on it.
Um, I went through a phase, you know,
kind of like how we have processes for
grief and things of where I was like
anti medication because I'd been so
over medicated and told that was the
only option and believed it for so long.
Um, and, and I've, I've come full circle
now with like, there's always, there is
a time and a place just like when you
were talking about the hospitals Right?
How they've got their Chinese
medicine pharmacy filled with
herbs and weird smelly things
that do wonderful things, right?
But if I need emergency surgery,
that's not the answer I'm looking for.
Don't
come to me if you break your
arm, go to the doctor, right?
Right.
Right.
If you have a tumor, if you
have a tumor, get it cut out.
Don't get acupuncture.
I mean,
get, get acupuncture,
get acupuncture with it.
But like, if you have a
tumor, go get it cut out.
Right.
Right.
And that's, that's the, I always
love to, to highlight, like we're
nobody here is here bashing Western.
I, you know, the love of my life
is a Western medical physician.
Right.
And he gets to use that
training and knowledge with a
functional medicine approach.
And that's, it's the best of both worlds.
Um, and so, you know, that's, that's
the ultimate, I think, really,
of, of being able to, to, to bring
it all together when necessary.
The goal is, for me, to get to a
place where you're consistently
healthy enough and understand your
body enough, where Western medicine
really becomes emergency medicine.
That's acute care.
That's what it
was.
It, it stemmed from hero medicine.
Yeah.
Right?
It stemmed from hero medicine,
which was all about these heroic
gestures, which does help when
you need those heroic gestures.
Autoimmunity does not
respond to heroic gestures.
Dermatology does not
respond to heroic gestures.
Right?
The, like, there are a few
cases where I will advise people
to do Western in addition.
to East Asian Medicine for Dermatology.
For example, if you have shingles,
go get on Valcyclovir and come to
me so I can like moxa and needles.
Needles is very, very
helpful for shingles.
Right.
Needles and moxa are extremely
helpful for shingles.
Um, needles are also very good for hives.
It kind of can like
take it out immediately.
Needles are not good for eczema.
Needles are not good for, for psoriasis.
Needles on their own.
Needles will help, right,
body calm the nervous system.
Like slightly move all of the
pieces in place so that you can
metabolize herbal medicine well.
Right?
So I usually will suggest doing, so
my treatment plans are, the shortest
treatment plan I have written in the
last three months is 11 pages, right?
They are literally how to guides for
each person to be like, okay, I'm
here, I'm at A, I want to get to Z.
How do I do that?
And how do I push or pivot?
How do I know to push or pivot?
Right?
So I literally, my second
appointment with people, they're
so overwhelmed by the treatment
plan, but they're also so grateful.
Right.
I'm like, I'm not expecting you to do
all this at once, that's why we see each
other for the next six to eight weeks.
Every week so that we can
help you move the needle.
Right.
Yeah, which I love.
I remember the first time you told
me about your treatment plans.
And I was like, wow.
But as somebody who loves a good
guide, you know, I mean, that's me.
I need to step up my game.
That's, that's amazing.
Well, because here's the thing.
You're giving people the
understanding of what really.
the healing path is.
Yeah, and understanding because another
realm of, well, two other realms of East
Asian medicine, there's diet, right?
Um, and particularly nutrition
and that's When you overeat stuff
and undereat stuff, um, and then
there's the lifestyle aspect, right?
So, like, mitigating overwork,
mitigating stress response, right?
Navigating stress, because
I never say managing stress,
because you cannot manage stress.
The only thing you can do
is navigate through it, and
like, You know, and having the
tools to do that in a healthy
way.
Yeah,
exactly.
There's a lot of at
home treatments, right?
There's, um, like when we deal with
thyroid conditions, I'll always have
them wash their neck because it's
shown to, um, decrease antibodies in
both Hashimoto's and graves, right?
Like it's just shown.
Okay.
Now tell me more.
So, uh, Korea has done a lot of
really great research in this.
Um, so, and then I have
also seen it in my patients.
Right?
I actually just had a patient, so I have a
patient who, um, she, she has Hashimoto's.
She has thyroglobulin antibodies
though, not TPO antibodies.
Okay.
So she went undiagnosed forever
because they didn't test her
thyroglobulin antibodies.
That's a whole other conversation and
I know there's been a lot about Hashis.
But she was doing neck Gua Sha.
Her thyroglobulin antibodies went from
67 to 16 in a matter of three months.
Wow.
She stopped Gua Sha ing.
And nine months later it was up at, um,
it was like her antibodies were up at 35.
And what is gua shaing?
Gua sha, so you take effectively
a soup spoon, like one of
those porcelain soup spoons.
That's what I give people.
This is like, this is your gift.
And then you just scrape your, your neck,
both the front and the back of your neck.
And so what it's effectively doing, it's,
yeah, it's allowing for blood flow and
so it's allowing to it's like letting
loose lymphocytes that are living in the
tissue so that the lymphatic system can
then take, it's not lymphatic massage at
all, lymphatic is completely different.
But, um, it's effectively
loosening them so the lymphatic
system can get rid of them.
Yeah.
Okay.
Just like, I'm just sitting here now.
It's very rare for me to be speechless.
And I'm like, my mouth is hanging open
for anybody listening on audio that
can't see the expression on my face.
Yeah.
And it's hard because, um, so
my, my thyroid mentor is a woman
named Heidi Levy at New York.
She's awesome.
And she talked about someone sent
her this article, um, this, this, um,
scientific research article out of Korea
about the, the Gua Sha for antibodies.
And she threw it away.
Cause she was like, this is bullshit.
Oh, sorry.
This is bull.
Right.
Say it.
I don't know if we can Jersey.
Okay.
Good.
Yeah.
Um, so like, like this is BS.
Like, she just threw it seems
so hard to believe.
Which is why my mouth is hanging
open.
She's like, absolutely not.
She's a very, very logical person.
She's like, absolutely not.
I'm out.
She has Hashimoto's.
But it, like, kind of stuck in her mind.
She's like, I'm going to
test it out on myself.
So she took her blood.
blood tests, found out what
her antibodies were, did Gua
Sha for a month, retook them.
Without changing anything
else, I'm guessing.
Without changing anything else.
Um, and then retook her,
her labs and they had,
and she was like, okay, maybe
there's something to this.
And then she kept looking for the
research article and she can't find it.
So she literally has a bounty out.
So if anyone can find this article.
Because it exists.
Because it exists, she just, it
was like through an email and
then she like, you know, put it
in her spam box Crazy, crazy bin.
In the
crazy bin.
Yeah.
Um, so.
But there are other articles coming
out of Korea that show an, in,
for Hashimoto specifically, doing
Net Gua Sha will, um, decrease TSH
and increase, increase free T4.
Wow, that's incredible.
And I want to highlight another
little piece of that story.
Um, which is regarding like your
patient with that you started with.
Um, somebody just asked me the
other day, you know, well, do
you say you're in remission?
Do you say you don't have
rheumatoid arthritis anymore?
And I was like, it's all semantics.
Like, it's not something I
actually think about anymore.
It's not a part of my life.
However, I am a million percent
certain that if I went back to living
the way I was living that got me
sick in the first place, I would be
clinically diagnosable with rheumatoid
arthritis again in the future.
Like, there's no question.
Um, and that example just reminded me
of, um, The, my, my sweetheart is a
much gentler, kinder human than I am.
And, and so when somebody, you know, has
been on plan and it's working and you
know, it's like, yay, and then they'd come
back in that scenario of like, they're
now they're not on plan and they're, and
you can see on labs, it's not working.
Um, he's really great at just
highlighting like, well, what you
were doing was clearly working.
And when you don't do it.
It's not working.
Yeah.
So, there you
go.
That's the beauty of labs.
Like, I run, I run labs on everyone
because I need that baseline and
I need to see, I need them to see
progress because I'll see it in
the course.
My whole thing is how do you feel?
But also, I'm a geek, and I
love seeing antibodies correct.
I love seeing inflammation markers
go down, fill in the blank.
The particular patient I was
thinking about, you know, was
somebody with prostate cancer.
I wanted to see his PSA continuing
to go back down instead of starting
to trend upward again, you know.
Um, and so there is this reward
of, you know, being able to track
and, and see like, oh, yeah.
And, you know, if I don't
work it, it doesn't work.
It
also, um, self reporting is really hard.
Because you're with yourself 24 7.
Yep.
I had someone come in yesterday
who, um, so he has psoriasis.
He came in originally with nail
psoriasis, but then he got a really,
like, uh, effectively strep throat.
And for psoriatic, strep
throat is like one day.
You have one day of a burning sore
throat, and then because your, your
body is, um, like, Th1 cytokine
dominant, it just, like, knocks it out.
But then, six to eight weeks later, you
have a psoriatic, uh, psoriasis flare.
And so that's what happened to him, is
he had this sore throat, he was doing
really well, his nail psoriasis was almost
completely grown out, and then he, um,
like, he came in, uh, in November with,
like, actual, like, Now psoriatic lesions.
His, um, he had scalp lesions that
had like come down on his forehead.
He had body lesions that he never
had before and he was freaking out.
And he kept saying, I've never had
this before, I've never had this
before, I've never had this before.
I keep going deep down there.
I was like, actually I've had this before.
When I was A teenager when I was 20 or
when I was, and I was like, okay, so
you just, like, and for him, it's, if
it's on his torso and he can cover it,
he didn't really pay attention to it.
It's when it's in visible areas
that it starts freaking him out.
But we were able to get him on track.
He was, he went, his body lesions went
away in about eight weeks, which is
actually pretty fast for psoriasis.
Um, but he's, his nails got a
little bit worse and his, his scalp
is actually significantly better.
I'm pretty impressed with his scalp.
His nails got a little bit worse.
So I saw him.
yesterday and he's like freaking out
about his nails and I'm looking at
his scalp and his scalp is clear.
It's the clearest I've seen it ever.
Um, and his nails are the way
they are because he was gardening
and they were, um, responsive
to the Kubner phenomenon, right?
Which is when you, uh, in sites
of trauma, you'll get psoriasis.
So because he had been working with his
hands, his nails got worse, but they,
he had told me like, they were almost
all like, they were like, he's like,
Oh, they were kind of almost clear.
And then I did this, like,
what's wrong, what's not working?
I'm like, no, no, no, it just means,
from a Chinese medical perspective, that
you have toxic heat in the blood level
that we just need to Then work on right?
Like it's it's information,
right?
Um, and I love that.
I
think it's part of one of my I always
tell clients, you know, one of my
biggest roles as a coach is making
you look over your shoulder to realize
the progress you've made because we
don't I love that you brought up the
self reporting or like last week.
Um, a client was in clinic
in person with her husband.
They both had lab reviews and
she's a Long, complicated case.
Fabulous, fabulous lady.
And after, you know, she gave her
thing, I turned to him and I was
like, and what have you noticed?
Right.
Because we do discounts.
All the time, you know, what's going on
in our body or like you said, if, if we
don't think other people can see it or
we're pushing through it, we just, we're,
we're not acknowledging, we're not aware.
But
it's funny because I talked to this, this
person and I, because he had eliminated
all of the super inflammatory foods and
he had snuck all of them back in and
that, so his nails were completely clear.
And then he's like, Oh, something's wrong.
Like, this isn't working on me.
I'm broken or something.
I know, but I'm like, no,
you reintroduce these foods.
Cause, effect.
Yeah, and, and I don't, like,
I'm at the, with him, I've, I've
mentioned going back on Otezlet to
him because of the, it's really hard
for him to Because if you can't do
the, yeah.
I told him that that's an option.
I had a client yesterday saying she was
feeling sad because, she's like, I just
don't think I can eat bread anymore.
And I'm like, what kind of bread?
Last I had spoken to
her, she was gluten free.
I had a whole wheat bread sandwich the
other day and man, my gut was a wreck.
And I was like, you can't
connect your own dots now.
I know.
And it's hard.
It's hard because I get it.
He wants to live the way he wants to live.
And he's had psoriasis since he was a kid.
He's had scalp psoriasis
since he was a kid.
And so, um, I just, I, I, that's
where like Western medicine does
work because it does suppress.
symptoms if you want to keep living the
lifestyle you want to live and I, you
know, I approached that with him and I
was like, listen, like you're doing pretty
well now even with some integration.
You have a little bit of nail psoriasis.
That's from the Kupner.
Let's focus on herbal medicine for
you and then he gets consistent,
um, cause he lives pretty far away.
So he comes to see me once every six to
eight weeks and then he gets community
acupuncture cause he, he lives about
an hour and a half away, um, closer
to him so that it's more accessible.
That's pretty cool.
Um, because one of the things about
psoriatics is we have a personality
type where the way I describe it is we
turn our, um, hobbies into obligations.
And so we tend to be hyper, hyper
stressed out people and acupuncture
minimally, even if it's needles in
the wrong place, will calm down the
nervous system and allow for psoriatics
to like, not get so overwhelmed.
Interesting.
I, I think, um, but that's
interesting to hear you say that
about psoriatics specifically.
Um, somebody had asked me once, you
know, do you work with, do you see
a fair amount of, um, control freaks
or, and I'm like, every client, I
mean, it may look different on the
outside, but yeah, every client.
Perfectionism is like, and it
took me, I can't tell you how many
years to then look in the mirror.
And be like, hmm,
er, if I should look at myself,
um, and, and so, you know, and
these are things that serve us
until they don't, I don't know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, exactly.
And so that's the thing is like, I think
one of the reasons why I gravitate towards
autoimmunity and dermatology, um, is one,
because it's, uh, very much, there aren't
very many options in Western medicine.
Right.
There's aren't.
Um, I get a lot of people
who are at their wits end.
I get a lot of people who are like, I'm
coming to you out of sheer desperation.
I literally had a patient who would
faint with needles, including blood
draws, and she had, she had really
bad eczema and she came to me, she's
like, I don't know what else to do.
So I'm willing to risk
fainting to figure this out.
And.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He never fainted on my table, thank God.
Uh, she fainted in other acupuncture
clinics, but like, um, because
I referred her to a, a community
clinic when it, so now we have a
community room within my clinic.
But before when we didn't, I would
refer her to this like one practitioner
in a community clinic nearby who
I knew and I studied with, and I
like gave her the baby needles.
I was like, use only these needles
on this particular patient.
Um, and she still passed out once.
But, um, but she's better.
Worth it to her to get better.
Yeah.
She is, she made a great recovery.
It took her a while because she was
a teacher and she kept getting sick.
And with eczema, you are
TH1 cytokine deficient.
So you actually catch colds really
easily and then it triggers your eczema.
So it kept being like
this like back and forth.
Cycle.
Yeah.
Yeah, but she eventually,
her immunity got better.
Her, her eczema is significantly better.
Um, she was dependent on steroid
creams for 20 years and now she
uses it once every four months.
When she has like a tiny bit on her
heel and she wants to wear sandals.
Um, she just went through like a whole
pregnancy and had a really smooth birth.
And, um, I haven't actually talked to her
in a couple of weeks because she's in,
you know, complete postpartum mama mode.
But, um, she, you know, she was like
pretty stable throughout her pregnancy.
It, it flared, her
eczema flared like twice.
Um, and we couldn't use herbal medicine.
We just, um, Because with pregnancy
you can't really do, I mean you can,
I just don't know how to, right.
Um, so I usually refer out.
It's not wor Yeah.
That, that's not, yeah.
And I can feel the like, this
is why you do what you do.
Right.
Hundred percent.
I love it.
I love it.
So here is some people's least
favorite part of the podcast.
My favorite part, I think it's
listener's favorite part too.
. What is, it could be anything, one
step that listeners can take today
to start to support their health.
A really good question.
I know, it's a tricky one.
It's tough.
I think the first step is,
uh, is assessing what they're
doing and, like, making a list
of, like, good, bad, missing.
So things they know that are good
for them, things they know that are
bad for them and things that they
might be missing from their life.
I love
that.
I love it.
Yeah.
I love how you got, you got, you got
like lots of things in that one step too.
I knew you were going to, but like
masterfully, you did it legally.
I love it.
That's great.
Because you know, we all, We have more
knowledge and intuition than we realize,
and so I love that, just assessing.
I tell people this all the time.
Um, you know more about your condition
than any of your practitioners.
Yep.
So, and what I hate is when my, my
patients aren't taken seriously.
Not just by Western, by
any other practitioner.
Right.
Yeah.
Right.
I literally, I had somebody come
in who was so dismissed by his
last acupuncturist, Very good.
Um, who pretty much said his insomnia
was because Uh, he, quote unquote, ate
like Gwyneth Paltrow, and I was like,
that is so mean, like, no, that doesn't,
that's not the only thing, like, look
at his whole, like, he was a therapist,
and so he, you know, was taking on a
lot of people's energies, and like,
um, he wasn't processing them well.
Right.
Right?
So I'm like, there's so much more
to it than just like, you are a
vegetarian and don't eat enough.
There's never one.
It's never one thing.
Never one thing.
Yeah.
And it's
never one thing that solves it either.
No.
Cause we're complex.
Whole humans.
Exactly.
And so, yeah.
Uh, I love that.
And I love that you're, you're, it
was about a man because so often we
talk about, because it is so common,
especially in the autoimmune world of
women being belittled and women not
being heard, and women getting offered
antidepressants because their doctors
don't know how to help them or don't
understand what's going on with them.
Mm-Hmm.
. Um, and it's, it's happening.
Happens to spend too.
So
No, it does, it happens to, um.
A lot, like, a lot of different
people are dismissed and it sucks
because Western medicine is a do
we intervene or do we not game.
There's no prevention.
There's no, except for functional,
like, there's no real prevention.
There's no, I've literally had people,
I had, I have this one patient, he's
so lovely, um, and it's also he,
he's trans, um, so it's even more
marginalized than women in healthcare.
Sure.
Yeah.
But he has so many different markers
for different autoimmune conditions,
but none of them lead up to a diagnosis.
And none of them are high
enough for them to intervene.
So they literally just say,
you have to live in pain.
There's nothing we can do for you.
Well, but the beautiful thing is
instead of him getting stuck in that
system like I did for over a decade,
taking all of the medications, he
had to keep searching and found you.
He did.
And honestly, he made, he was
having asthma and he got an
inhaler and it wasn't working.
And when you look at the rest of
him, he has some sort of, he has some
sort of connective tissue disease.
We don't know what it is.
It's not MCTD.
It's not.
So here's,
here's a question though.
Do you need to know what it
is in order to help him heal?
No, but here's the thing.
I thought of that.
I'm like, he has these.
issues with his muscles and his joints.
What if the breathing
is intercostal muscles?
And so we did, um, acupuncture and
herbal medicine for the intercostals
and his breathing got 98 percent better.
But, and so I, to the point where he like
had me write a letter to his pulmonologist
to be like, this is what we saw.
This is what you missed.
Yeah.
Well, this is what we saw.
He obviously has these other
connective tissue issues.
The intercostal muscles, are a huge part
of that, so like you have to look at the
whole person, not just the one symptom.
Yeah, and that is the, this, this
jointed western approach, right?
That's, that's why for what I'll call
lifestyle illnesses, if you will,
even with genetic components, still
always lifestyle, um, just, that's not,
that's not acute care and that's not
what western medicine does as well.
Period.
Yeah.
Oh, well, I've kept you so,
so long before I let you go.
For people that are listening
on the go, as I tend to when I'm
listening to podcasts, where's
the best place to find you?
So my clinic website is tendervine health.
Um, I have a personal website too
But it's I don't really update it and
it's mostly for other practitioners.
But yeah, so it's tendervine t e
n d e r v i n e health so if you
google us we're there and We're
based out of Berkeley, California.
So we don't we don't Really do remote.
Um, but if you wanna like pay
attention, 'cause we try and write bog
articles as much as possible because
it's, it's not just me, it's a team.
We're, we're a team of practitioners now.
So.
Yeah.
And amazing, amazing information
you're putting out there, . Thank you.
So thank you so very much.
I appreciate all of the wisdom
you shared with us today.
No problem.
Thanks Julie for having me.
For everyone listening, remember
you can get the transcripts and show
notes by visiting inspired living.
show.
I hope you had a great time and
enjoyed this episode as much as I did.
I'll see you next week.